Paul Tapponnier, an internationally outstanding geoscientist, one of the founders of Tibetan Plateau research, an academician of the French Academy of Sciences and a foreign academician of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, winner of the Chinese Government Friendship Award, and distinguished professor of the National Institute of Natural Disaster Prevention and Control ).
According to the National Institute of Natural Disaster Prevention and Control of the Ministry of Emergency Management (referred to as the "National Institute of Natural Disaster Prevention and Control"), an internationally outstanding earth scientist, one of the founders of Tibetan Plateau research, an academician of the French Academy of Sciences and a foreign academician of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and a friendship member of the Chinese government The winner of the award , Paul Tapponnier, a distinguished professor at the National Institute of Natural Disaster Prevention and Control, died in Beijing on December 24, 2023 at the age of 76 due to ineffective treatment.
Paul Taponier is famous for his research on the active tectonics of the Tibetan Plateau and the theory of the Tibetan Plateau block extrusion model.
Paul Taponier was born in France on January 6, 1947. He received a master's degree in geology and geophysics from the Ecole Supérieure des Mines in Paris, France, in 1970, and a doctorate from the University of Montpolier II, France, in 1978.
He was the first to successfully apply satellite remote sensing to the study of active tectonics, and published the first complete map of active faults in East Asia; he was the first to propose the important role of large-scale strike-slip faults in the Tibetan Plateau in the deformation of the India-Eurasia collision orogenic belt, and established Active tectonic research methods and standards demonstrate the perfect combination of field geology, physical simulation and numerical simulation; use high-resolution satellite remote sensing and field fault landform mapping, combined with high-precision dating, to quantify the kinematics of Quaternary active faults and rupture characteristics of large earthquakes.
Professor Paul Taponier's series of pioneering works in the field of continental deformation and dynamics changed the research paradigm of Asian geology. He proposed the slip line field theory of the Tibetan Plateau, the eastward escape kinematic model of the Tibetan Plateau, and established The Asian tectonic framework model has brought many inspirations to the study of collisional orogenic belt deformation, and made important contributions to the theory of plate tectonics and the study of geotectonic evolution in East Asia and Southeast Asia.
Professor Paul Taponier is also an educator loved by students and has trained a large number of outstanding talents.
He was awarded the Silver Medal of the French National Center for Science in 1984, the Wegener Medal of the European Geoscience Society in 1985, the Lavelle Science Medal in Paris in 1990, the Chevalier of the French National Legion of Honor in 1991, and the American Geophysical Union in 1994. Doctor, Best Paper Award of the Geological Society of America in 1994, Honorary Fellow of the Geological Society of America in 1996, Friendship Medal of the Chinese Government in 1998, Distinguished Professor of the California Institute of Technology in 2000, Foreign Academician of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States in 2005, and Academician of the French Academy of Sciences in 2005. Einstein Chair Professor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2011, Honorary Member of the Geological Society of Nepal in 2012, Axford Medal of the Asia-Oceania Geoscience Society in 2018, etc.
From 1991 to 2009, Paul Taponier served as director of the Tectonic Department and tenured full professor (physicist, special grade) of the Institute of Geophysics in Paris, France. From 2009 to 2018, he served as a full professor and head of tectonic and seismic research at the Singapore Earth Observatory (an affiliated institution of Nanyang Technological University); subsequently, he served as a distinguished professor at the National Institute of Natural Disaster Prevention and Control of the Ministry of Emergency Management of China.
The National Disaster Research Institute was officially launched on December 30, 2019. It was established by the Crustal Stress Research Institute of the China Earthquake Administration and was renamed into the Ministry of Emergency Management. It is a national-level comprehensive prevention and control of natural disasters jointly established by the Ministry of Emergency Management and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Scientific research institutions and emergency management scientific and technological innovation and technical support platforms, public welfare second-class scientific research institutions, are mainly responsible for the research of major policies, basic theories, key technologies, and important equipment for natural disaster prevention and control, as well as the transformation and application demonstration of scientific and technological achievements.